Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping Beauty turquoise is one of the most recognizable types of turquoise in the world and has practically become synonymous with the word turquoise. The rich, sky blue color and the lack of heavy matrix has made it famous all over the world, rivaling even the robin's egg clear blue Persian turquoise so coveted by collectors. It forms in nuggets with a soft white matrix, occasionally with small amounts of quartz or pyrite. Over the years, as buyers started to prefer stones with matrix, the matrix was often artificially darkened with the use of shoe polish or other methods to give it a higher contrast.